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Principal Cloverside School, Montclair, N. J. 



NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

31 West Twenty^third St. 



By t.rjansf©) 

APB 20 1916 




xiie Opportunity of the Teacher 



ELIZABETH WESTON TIMLOW^ PRINCIPAL CLOVERSIDE 
SCHOOL, MONTCLAIR, N. J. 



Three hundred years ago, a chattering, laugh- 
ing group of young artists were passing one 
day along an obscure street in lovely Florence. 
One of them, tall, lean, and sinewy, his keen 
eager eyes seeing all things, suddenly darted 
into a small stone-cutter's yard, where lay, 
half buried in the rubbish, a long neglected 
block of marble. Regardless of his holiday 
attire, he at once fell to work on it, clearing 
away its filth and striving to lift it from the 
slime and mire where it lay. His companions, 
astonished, asked him what he w^as doing and 
what he wanted of that worthless piece of 
rock that had been lying there for years. 

" There is an angel in the stone and I must 
get it out," was the reply of Michael Angelo. 

He had it removed to his studio, and, with 
two years of patient toil, he let the angel out. 
What to others was but an unsightly mass 
of stone, to his educated eye was the buried 
glory of art; he discovered at once what 
might be made of it. A mason would have 
put it in a wall; a cartman would have used 
it for filling and grading the street; but the 
artist transformed it into a creation of ex- 
quisite beauty for ages to come. 



Such an artist is, or should be, the true 
teacher. The object of education is some- 
times said to be the abiHty to adjust one's 
self to one's environment; it is, rather, to 
develop the ability to change the environment 
at one's will — to forward the progress of the 
world. 

It was said of a certain famous fisherman 
that all he needed to catch a fish was a little 
damp spot and straightway he landed a trout. 
It is certainly a miracle, what a teacher who 
is born to her profession can do with the most 
unpromising material. In the well-conducted 
school, practically everything, mental, and 
moral and physical, must be dealt with; its 
province is not only the development of the 
mind but of the body; not only of strength 
but of grace; not only the inner but the outer. 
Our girls must be trained in manner and car- 
riage ; they must be taught the inestimable 
value of a low voice and refined intonation. 
Can these details of accent, courtesy, posture, 
consideration for others, thoughtfulness, all 
that go to make up gentle breeding, be left 
entirely to the home? There must be the 
strongest co-operation on the part of home 
and school ; nothing can be risked in these 
critical times, and our girls need every safe- 
guard ; it will be hard for them at the best 
to keep their feet firm in the rush and swirl 
of the ideas of the day. Towards all this 
must their school discipline tend. 

Carved on an old bit of stonework at Ab- 



3 
botsford at Melrose Abbey, with the date of 
1616, is a little legend that runs as follows: 

Virtus Rectorem ducemque desiderat : 
Vitia sine magistro discuntur. 

" Virtue requires a ruler and a guide : 
Follies are learned without a teacher." 

Not only, then, are the outer graces of girl- 
hood well within the teacher's province, but 
important moral questions confront us. The 
school life and the school lessons come but 
once; life has other lessons to teach us, but 
this time for preparation never comes again. 
Here in the schoolroom do we learn our hard- 
est lessons of faithfulness, patience, persever- 
ance, promptness, cheerful acquiescence, the 
germs of which must be planted now — or 
never. 

It is well known that the brain reaches its 
maximum weight by the fifteenth year, though 
it probably continues to develop, internally, 
until at least the age of thirty. There comes 
a time, however, when the brain, like the body, 
ceases to grow and remains at a standstill. 
Between forty and fifty, a slow decrease in 
the weight of the brain takes place. The 
young brain is vigorous, but much less plastic, 
after twenty, and it gradually, so to speak, 
ossifies. Few people, James says, get an 
entirely new idea into their heads after pass- 
ing into the thirties, although a structure of 
almost any height may be built up with mate- 
rials already gathered on a foundation already 
laid. 



4 
Since nature, then, has decreed that we 
must fight out the battle of life on the lines 
of our early choice, here is a world of oppor- 
tunity for the eager general of the schoolroom. 
Here in history, in literature, in psychology, 
in the marvelous laws of the mind, are not 
merely the day's recitations, the day's marks, 
but the greater lessons that will be for life. 
Every shrewd student really knows in her 
heart that it will not affect the universe ten 
years hence, if she skims over to-day's Greek, 
or if she does not solve quite all of the orig- 
inals in geometry, or is not absolutely sure 
of all her constructions in Sallust or Cicero. 
But here comes in the realm of the teacher. 
The student must be made to feel that not 
one atom of unfaithfulness can occur without 
branding the heart ; the spirit of unthorough- 
ness that makes it possible for her to skim 
over the irregular verbs will make it not only 
possible but probable that some crisis of life 
will find her shirking the issue on which much 
depends. Contrariwise, she must be made to 
knozv that every knotty problem faithfully 
wrestled with and thrown, every tough bit 
of Latin and Greek struggled with and con- 
quered, gives the character an added strength 
and fibre to battle with life's sterner issues 
and come ofif victor in the strife. If our girls 
are in the habit of giving up over every little 
schoolroom difficulty, how will they have 
persistence and endurance when some black 
trouble suddenly clouds their summer sky, 
with no refuge near? Ah! They then have 



5 
only the protection that we have helped them 
to forge. 

"Habit, a second nature?" cried the Duke 
of Wellington. '' Habit is ten times nature ! " 

The profound truth of this old saying comes 
home to no one more than the veteran soldier, 
who has seen years of drill and discipline end 
by fashioning many a man over completely. 
The girl in the schoolroom who has daily 
inured herself to habits of concentrated atten- 
tion, energetic volition, even to self-denial in 
unnecessary things, will in later life stand 
like a tower when all things rock around 
her and Avhen her unsta1)le fellow pupils are 
■ prostrated in the first storm. The psycho- 
logical study of mental conditions is here 
the most powerful ally of the teacher, who 
then drives home the lessons we have already 
mentioned — that we are spinning our own 
fate for good or evil, which is never to be 
undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or 
of vice leaves its never so little scar. 

The drunken Rip van Winkle, in dear Joe 
Jefferson's play, you remember, excuses him- 
self for every fresh dereliction, by saying, 
*' W^e won't count tJiis time!" AVell, he may 
not count it and forgiving Heaven may not 
count it, but it is being counted, nevertheless, * 
in the relentless bookkeeping of nature. Down 
among his nerve centers, the molecules are 
registering and storing it up against him, 
ready to weaken his resistance still further 
next time the temptation comes. Literally 
nothing that we do can ever be wiped out. 



6 

If this had not its good side as well as its bad, 
if resistance could not be built up as well as 
weakened, how indeed could we endure life? 

Here in the classroom, through history and 
literature, we must begin to teach our girls 
the mysterious secret of success — of true suc- 
cess. For how has all real success been 
gained? By good luck? By accident? These 
are words that one rarely hears from the lips 
of the successful man or woman. They know 
only too well that in this world we get just 
about what we are willing to pay for. If we 
would succeed we must have the zvill to suc- 
ceed. But does not everybody have this, they 
may ask? By no means. The majority of 
people are willing to succeed, which, I assure 
you, is quite a different matter. 

It is our province to teach our girls the 
dignity of work ; that the men who have 
achieved success are the ones who have read, 
and thought and studied always a little more 
than was necessary ; who have never been con- 
tent with knowledge merely sufficient for the 
present need, but who have sought additional 
knowledge and stored it away for the emer- 
gency reserve. We must teach them the pro- 
found truth that it is the supcrHuous labor that 
equips a man for everything that counts most 
in life. The one who, when in doubt does the 
minimum instead of the maximum quantity, 
is not the one who will raise the world's stand- 
ard. Every business man will say that it is 
the quick eye that sees and the ready hand 
that executes some necessary service that yet 



7 
was not '' in the bond," that makes a man in- 
valuable to his employer. Build up this spirit 
in the schoolroom with the school lessons. 

Make the pupils realize, too, the necessity 
of definite purpose. We older ones know that 
the great thing in this world is not so much 
to know where we stand but where we are 
going. To reach the highest port we must 
sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes 
against it — but we must sail and not drift, nor 
yet lie at anchor. We must leave nothing to 
chance. Why — pardon the hackneyed ex- 
ample — was Caesar so tmiformly victorious? 
Did he ever go forward unprepared? Did he 
leave any weak point undefended? Every 
school girl and boy fervently answers, 
" Never." The magnificent commander was 
provided for every emergency, armed at every 
point, and — won. 

Ah ! It is 

" Enough to know of Chance or Luck 
The blow we choose to strike is struck." 

It is here in the schoolroom again that the 
teacher finds her opportunity, at the psycho- 
logical moment, to set before these young 
minds the necessity of an Ideal. There is no 
more important step than this ; the lives of 
illustrious men must be studied to see how 
obstacles are to be overcome, how the heights 
are gained. The Ideal may embody the 
energy of a Napoleon, the self-devotion of a 
Dorothea Dix, the patriotism of a Washing- 
ton, the disinterested heroism of a Florence 



8 

Nightingale, the iron will of a Cromwell or 
the simple faithfulness to duty of a Louise 
Alcott, the humanity of a Howard or the 
splendid chivalry of a Susan B. Anthony for 
her sex. The boy or girl who has not had his 
or her imagination fired by great deeds will 
not amount to much. Each must fashion for 
herself the ideal she is determined to attain. 
*' Hitch your wagon to a star " means only 
this. But conversely, " What thou wouldst 
be thou must be." 

" That which thou lovest, most 
E'en that become thou must. 
Christ's, if thou lovest Christ; 
Dust, if thou lovest dust." 

The Hindoos say, "As a man thinketh, so 
is he." It is not only for the parent but for 
the teacher to impress upon our girls that an 
idle, frivolous, chattering, gossiping girlhood 
will no more develop into ripe, full, rich 
womanhood than men can gather grapes of 
thorns or figs of thistles.* 

Here, again, in the schoolroom, she must 
learn the high meaning of the every day act 
and the every day word ; the beauty of work, 
of unselfish, devoted work, with ambition to 
do the appointed task. There is no royal road 
to success; our girl must learn that in one way 
or another we pay the price for all we have 
and are, for this insane craving to get some- 
thing for nothing is gnawing at the very root of 
modern life. We see it on every side with men 
demanding a full share of the luxuries of life 
with a decrease of labor; the steady raising of 



9 

wages and the shortening of the working hour, 
until, as Charles Dudley Warner prophesied, 
when labor ge'ts to be ten dollars a day, the 
working people will not come at all — " They 
will send their cards." The president of 
America's greatest University has said that 
it is only the workingman that can afford the 
luxury of an eight-hour day. As a general 
rule we all know that the higher we go in 
the scale of value to the community, the longer 
the working hours. 

Again, our girls learn in the study of psy- 
chology that every effect has had a due and 
adequate cause ; in real life, however, because 
the cause and its effect are often separated as 
far as the Latin subject and its predicate, 
youth is sometimes slow to recognize the in- 
evitable connection. Every thing worth hav- 
ing is worth its price in work — and if we 
apparently get it for nothing, we may be pay- 
ing the heaviest price of all — the price of our 
self-respect. It is our place as teachers, no 
less than it is the duty of parents, to empha- 
size this with unceasing iteration. 

Luther Burbank, in a recent article on the 
Training of the Human Plant, has the follow- 
ing noteworthy thought: 

" There is not a single desirable attribute, which 
lacking in a plant, may not be bred into it. 
Choose what improvement you wish in a plant, and 
with crossing, selection and persistence, you can fix 
this desirable trait irrevocably. Pick out any trait 
you want in your child, be it honesty, fairness, purity, 
lovableness, or what not, and with the proper environ- 
ment, persistence and love, you can fix in your child 
for all his life, all of these traits." 



lO 

Is not this startling? 

However, we must inculcate the lessons of 
the girls' responsibility, not only to themselves 
but also to others. Not too young is any 
girl in her teens to learn the tremendous im- 
port of Kant's famous Categorical Imperative : 
" So act that the reason for your action may 
be a universal law." 

It is considered a legitimate subject for 
ridicule that when a mother brings her little 
maid or lad to school for the first time, she 
is very apt to say, anxiously, 

" You will have no trouble with Genevieve 
if you will try to understand her, but she 
is so peculiar. She is not a bit like other 
children." 

But while bystanders laugh, the experi- 
enced teacher knows that this is exactly true, 
although possibly not as the mother meant it. 
No two children are alike, nor do any two 
need exactly the same treatment. This shy 
child needs praise and improves under it, 
but droops under criticism, however kindly. 
That one needs to have her self-conceit gently 
pruned. This one is thorough and painstak- 
ing and conscientious; she needs restraint, if 
anything; another is inclined to slight her 
work and must be taught to go to the root 
of her subject. This girl has a tendency to 
be exclusive and to put too much stress on 
the possession of money or position ; she 
must be shown that brains make the world's 
masters. Another is careless and superficial ; 
much doing over of her untidy work will help 



II 

her to mend her slipshod ways. This lassie 
is dreamy and poetical ; she needs more mathe- 
matics than her prosaic, independent sister. 
Another child is lazy and needs the spur; the 
eager brain of her friend should have restraint ; 
and so on through a hundred varying types. 
With each one the plastic minds should never 
be stretched to one procrustean bed of studies, 
but each subject should trend towards the 
development of the highest self. 

It is said that certain native artists, when 
they would drill a hole in pearls, first fit them 
loosely in apertures bored in pieces of soft 
wood ; then a little water is sprinkled around 
them which gradually penetrates the fibres, 
and causes the wood to swell until each little 
pearl Ts held firmly in its place as in a vise. 
Indeed, no vise could hold such delicate little 
treasures so firmly, yet without marring them 
and thus diminishing their value. But by this 
device the choicest ones are kept securely in 
their places without injury until the artist's 
work is done ; then, as the water dries out, 
the fibres relax and the pearl is free. Thus 
must the teacher hold the soul-pearls by faith 
and sympathy until her work is done. She 
must know her ground thoroughly. She must 
feel intuitively when to trust and when irre- 
pressible girlhood would take advantage of 
leniency. She must understand when to en- 
courage and when to lash unsparingly mere 
laziness. Moral development along every line 
is her province, no less than mental. 

Children are at school not merely to cram 



12 

Latin and mathematics down ostrich-like 
throats, but to learn to become loyal and true 
and high-minded, and to strengthen characters 
that should grow more womanly day by day. 
But all this can be accomplished only by a 
lavish outpouring of one's very self — one's 
own heart's blood. Nature is stern in her 
exchanges. We have seen that nothing for 
nothing is her Draconian mandate. It is, in 
the arena of the schoolroom, *'A life for a 
life," in another sense than the rigorous 
Hebrew decree; here it is a life gained for the 
life that is freely given, for in no lesser, easier 
way can this mighty question of education, 
this drawing out, this leading on, this build- 
ing up of our future citizens, this training of 
the hands that are in time to rule the world, 
be accomplished. 

The teacher's privilege it is to inspire these 
eager minds with enthusiastic love for truth 
and high ideals. To bring before them the 
lofty examples of the world's heroes. To set 
true values before their eyes. To imbue them 
with deep scorn of all that is ignoble and base. 
To instil appreciation of the transcendent 
quality of the spiritual as opposed to the 
material side of life. To cultivate the too 
often neglected sense of honor and imprint 
upon these mobile, sensitive natures utter 
loathing and contempt of all falsehood and 
hypocrisy. She teaches them to live up to 
their birthright in life, and imbues them with 
the deepest sense of the responsibilities which 
that position entails — that responsibility that 



13 

is in exact proportion to the blessings that 
have been given. She teaches them that they 
are infinitely more culpable for the smaller 
lapses from the path of right than are the chil- 
dren of the streets, because of the very differ- 
ence in these opportunities. 

Thus sympathetically, faithfully, does she 
strive to lead her charges to a noble woman- 
hood, joining with the mother in training 
them to " self-reverence, self-knowledge, self- 
control, by which alone man can approach the 
gods." 

The world needs our daughters and we 
must send them out clad in the completest 
armor that can be forged by earnest care, by 
wise instruction, by tender watching, and by 
human love. 



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